Category Archives: Rank & File

August 19, 2023 · 8:43 am

00390505

“Are we going to go ahead and sacrifice Willy Wonka, this *new* clown?” knife welding Preacher Stefan cried in the church immediately bordering the joker’s property, channeling the anger of Constantynople’s townspeople as a whole. Their buildings, their homes, had been called *junk*! Outrage spread through the village. Thus this meeting in the church they all loved. At least he didn’t pick on *this* particular low lying building, the most sacred in all the I’s land: St. Merry’s. “*I* want to speak,” said Pitch from the front, who was, after all, their default leader, the me closer to me than all the rest, being the same as Baker Bloch in essence. “Go ahead, dear,” urged wife Mary by his side. Always. Preacher Stefan acted fast before the townspeople were persuaded otherwise with a stab and accompanying spurt — right on Pitch’s just washed suit, blood splattered again so soon. Pitch looked down.

“Aww *damn*!”

“*Honey*. Not in *church*.” Laughter all around; bloodlust satisfied. Pitch had no pitch here.

“We’ll work on getting it out later,” she added toward the end, wiping up all they could in the moment.

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August 17, 2023 · 6:29 pm

he bats right he bats left doesn’t matter

“That was some pitch… Pitch. Explosive, even!”

“Thank you. I tried hard on that. Bit of spit, admittedly, to cut down on the Lively. Return to dead ball era, where I was *king*.”

‘Of course you were, Pitch. And Buster was a marvelous shortstop back in those days too.”

“Damm right!” Both laugh then quickly compose themselves. Serious stuff now. Library. Saving Constantynople.

—–

There he was, in Special Collections again. Looking for himself. I’ll have what I’m having and all. Self service. He already had his eye on something.

“Can I help you?” reading room coordinator Swanie Rivers jumped in, trying not to flap her wings this time despite the head, the gum. Calm and cool, like a waterfall or attached stream. *Not* a volcano or any kind of lava flow. Blue, clear, ready for tubing on a sticky ass hot summer day. She’ll let him select something and then tell him. No f-ing gum in Special Collections! But… calmly, cooly. No wing flapping.

“What’s in that more crooked shelving, those ring binders over there?” Philip believes he’s seen it in a dream. Several times in fact.

“Oh, yes, that’s part of the Merk Coolie Brighton collection. He use to work here!” Swamie told herself not to get excited and shout in the room, even though no one is currently there except Philip and her. But… he use to *work* here!

“Am I in it?” he asked, throwing Swanie for a loop. A closed one. Not-what-she-seems cleaning lady Ross C. slides through the cracks in the front door to observe.

Philip pops his gum one…

last…

time.

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August 17, 2023 · 3:24 pm

now

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August 16, 2023 · 4:37 pm

heart of the island trail

They left their familiars behind at the campfire, Mary and the 88s. We may catch up with them later. But first…

“Okay, all together with the magic donuts,” Wheeler commanded with the chocolate, Baker the strawberry. “One… two…”

Didn’t take long before she was somewhere else, being someone else. “Baker, w-where’d you go? Baker!? Suddenly she had to go, she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t shut the door for privacy. A little girl passed by.

“A little privacy?” she asked, making her stop and stare. Uncomfortably. “A little help?” She wanted the girl to shut the door and go away, because going away then shutting the door was impossible. “Little girl… your name please, little girl.” But then she recognized her. Shelley Struthers. From Hooktip. Just down the lane from her. Or up.


Shelley wasn’t suppose to talk to strangers, especially ones with long green noses and who smelled bad in the moment. Through the hat — different than the one Wheeler wore upon entering the woods in the heart of the island — she gathered she was confronting a witch. And it was strangely satisfying to see her obviously doing the thing that outhouses were made for. Gratifying indeed. She took in all the various, accompanying facial expressions. Why was this so fascinating?; like getting a mustard and ketchup laden hot dog with relish ta boot, she thought. So odd. The situation lasted a very long time indeed, probably much longer than possible actually. The witch had been saving it up for just this special moment, it seemed.

“*Thanks* little girl, er, *Shelley*. Thanks a *lot*,” she managed after it was finally over, door still open all this time. Then she realized she could have just “touched” it and shut it all along. In the heat of the moment, she forgot how Our Second Lyfe worked. “I’m *not* real here,” she muttered as a reinforcement. “I *didn’t* have to go to the bathroom — especially like that. I *could* have shut the door all the time. Heck, I didn’t even have to get seated. How’d *that* happen?” She looked up; Shelley was still there. “Well, move along… or speak or something. Don’t just keep standing there staring. Show’s over anyway.” She stands and finds she is clean down there, despite the lack of paper. Things were kind of getting back to “normal” in a virtual sense. And then her new hat was gone, replaced by the old. The girl extended her hand.

“You haven’t been here before, have you?” Wheeler shook her head and then grasped.

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August 16, 2023 · 8:59 am

I’ll have what I’m having

And so we end in a bar, Wheeler serving herself with tag-along 88s keeping guard. Usually this is the way you can tell it’s Wheeler and not someone else, say, Baker Bloch or Bracket Jupiter (and so on).  She realizes the resonance with the hat and increases its tips two-fold, least she can do for poor, dead Zimmy. Mr. Z. One and the same. Putting that to rest we can move on…

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August 15, 2023 · 12:12 pm

00390415

“Why from the Abyss,” she answered the hot dog guy, trying to guess the ambiguity. The Christmas look and the green nose didn’t win him over. “Gracious goodness I’ve forgotten the name of this festive thingamabob growing out of my nose,” she said just earlier, talking about it before he did, they all did (in her mind). “Not mistletoe — that’s for hanging *above* your head, not *off* it, ah ha ha ha ha!” Did the laugh convince?

“Well it looks like a big long booger,” he said crudely, and then asked if she wanted relish on her big loong dog. Disgusting. Why did she come out of hiding in the first place? To deal with lowlifes like this beach bum? This nobody? “Where you from? Woman?”

—–

Where indeed? There were *elephants* in her Abyss now, another sign she had to go, along with the rest of the avatar family. Zimmy is obviously Jimy. Jimy Z., gone as sure as Zimmy since he was also dead. Only the symbolic Liverpool plane remains: big red machine, twitch of the Morgan, lumber for a Bench. Red as Rose, another archetype and more obvious. Red Star becomes Old Red Star and is banished from the game he so so loves. They bring in a Foster boy and he turns out to be just as legit as any of ’em. Conception is an error caught between the legs. Perez just is. Geronimo! (and he died) Griffey had a Junior who took control. One through eight complete. Visible compendium. No need to worry about the zero and the nine. They were enough by themselves to carry the team through any troubles, ride it to victory. Never mind who pitches what. What’s the pitch, Pitch? Didn’t matter. They were enough. Biiig lumber.

She went to talk to Willy Wonka in the past present future to give him a piece of her mind, dodging big piles of elephant doo all along the way. They met at the south end of the property, where we’ve been before, CROOKED in clear sight through an opening between palm trees and rocks. “You *don’t* understand,” she complained while indicating. “Those are *historic* buildings over there.” “That *junk*?” he reiterated, trying to think of new and more effective ways to derender all that for his fancy smancy artsy fartsy photos. “It looks like, I don’t know, a giant kid ate a whole bunch of tinker toys and legos and then threw up.” “*Moard* *Ling*”, she kept defending. “You’ll never hold a candle to him… Wonka.” It took a while but she had learned to respect the prolific prim creator, stuck in the past but with lessons to teach. Sometimes the past is better, at least in part, in ways. This is what she learned from Constantynople, soon to be no more here. She was about to have her last pass through it. She spotted the purple garbed guy — another *former* after all, another one living in the past. Why can’t he *see*?

It could have been different.

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August 15, 2023 · 11:50 am

machine, big and red

She turned her back on him while riding, so disgusted she was of the situation. Leaving! We just got here! And so many more fish stories to catch. “What about Philip?” she protested from another angle. “What *library* is he going to find all the whoppers that have been written about *him*? Hmph.”

But of course Pitch, being who he is, had another pitch to deliver. They moved downstairs to continue the game…

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August 13, 2023 · 4:57 pm

dream ended

Welp, my stay on the island of Constance didn’t last as long as I hoped it would. Leaving in a week. Immediate neighbor called my town there *junk*. Another neighbor has blocked it off with a big screen. Shame. But where to next? Maybe take a little break from virtual land ownership, rent smaller places for a while? NWES City remains an option, a strong one. Perhaps the most logical one. Just like I’ve done before. But playing around with this “island-state” certainly was fun, I’ll say! Our Second Lyfe is soo mutable.

I’ll take the redecorated CROOKED with me wherever I go. And I can keep exploring the island from a distance, without all the involved money. I’ll regroup elsewhere. Though it might take a while to get back to this finely balanced point. Goodbye Myrtle and the rest! Let’s see what happens this week to tie a bow on the process.

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August 13, 2023 · 9:17 am

00390412

And so he’s come full circle, staring at a wall screen that shouldn’t be here. Constantynople should be integrated into the rest of the island by now. Yet: segregated still; central importance not realized, not understood. Myrtle’s urgings to her neighbors remained in the future, hidden in a probable reality, perhaps never to see the light of day and, if so, perhaps just falling on deaf ears, as she was once deaf to the situation. Yet she saw CROOKED (in the future), she saw the light, thanks to the Abyss and Axis. She turned.

—–

“Hooray, he’s back!” cried the standing yellow porch ickle upon seeing him enter the square. But Mr. Z was not nearly as enthusiastic as when this first happened over 2 months ago, shortly after Constantynople itself was formed. Now it just seemed old… and tired. He says goodbye to the excited ickle, arms still raised in joy, and lumbers up to his 2nd floor apt. pondering next steps. Zimmy, if only I’d found you in Southside, he thinks, head in hands, about ready for a good cry. Now I am still alone. The tears begin…

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August 12, 2023 · 3:34 pm

00390411

Philip watched Philip’s head turn big one last time before turning and leaving him behind at the base of the bridge.

“You stay here,” he said to his double just earlier, looking down on him a bit from the middle. Only the big head drew them even. “Storms’ a brewing: hurricane season, let’s say. You go back and take care of Dancing and Flip Flop just in case.”

“Just in case what?” the double asked.

“You know what,” Philip answered himself, or about as close as he could get. But the big head — eye to eye, then. Something about his doppelganger having answers that he didn’t. But no time for that now; the decision has been made. He turns…

Mr. Z watched it all from a nearby chair, perhaps unnoticed in the heat of the moment. He’d seen it all before. His own double.

Mr. Z, aka A.B. Normal, paused at the top of the bridge, realizing he had encountered his own doppelganger heading in the opposite direction: toward that island storm.

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